Girl Talk
by Soledad
Summary: An old story I found again. Tosh gives Gwen a piece of her mind after TEotW. Not Gwen friendly. Obviously.


**Girl Talk**

**by Soledad**

**Title:** **Girl Talk**

**Author:** Soledad

**Fandom:** Torchwood

**Category: **episode tag (sort of)

**Characters:** Toshiko Sato, Gwen Cooper

**Rating:** General, suitable for all.

**Genre:** Character piece

**Timeframe:** During the last minutes of the Series 1 finale "The End of Days"

**Summary: **Toshiko gives Gwen a piece of her mind.

**Disclaimer:** Torchwood belongs to the allmighty BBC. I don't make any gain from this, save a little satisfaction.

* * *

The sight of Ianto quietly crying into Jack's coat in the orphaned office was the last straw for Toshiko. Rising from her workplace in a strange state of controlled outrage, she strolled down to the morgue, where Gwen was still mulishly sitting with Jack's lifeless body.

"Tell me, Gwen, just when is it enough for you?" she demanded. "How many men, how much attention, how much drama does it take to satisfy you?"

Gwen looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes and mouth hanging open in shock… quite like a blowfish, actually.

"What do you mean?" she asked in a hurt voice. Apparently, she had the brains and the sensitivity of a blowfish, too. But again, that was nothing new.

Toshiko gestured around them angrily.

"I mean _this_. You sitting here like a grieving widow, as if you'd be the only one who's lost Jack. What gives you the _right_ to shoulder yourself in here, taking Ianto's place?"

"Ianto's… _what_?" Yep, definitely the brain capacity of a blowfish.

Toshiko rolled her eyes. "You aren't telling me that _you_ of all people didn't know the two had… had something going on, are you? After all, you've been clinging to Jack like a leach since he hired you. Why do you always have to take what belongs to someone else? What's _needed_ by someone else?"

Gwen shook her head, the first surprise gone now and the usual mulish expression returned. "Jack _wanted_ me on his side…"

"… because you're the least qualified of us all," Toshiko interrupted sharply. "Hell, you couldn't even shoot when you came here – you used to be a beat cop at the best times and coffee girl at the worst ones. He didn't want you to get killed on the field right away, and God knows you keep doing your best to get killed because you _never_ listen. You always think you know everything better than those who've done this kind of work for years. Had you tried to pull things like that at the police, they'd have fired you long ago!"

Again, Gwen was so surprised by Toshiko's vicious attack that she couldn't reply at all, just opened and closed her mouth stupidly a few times. Already on the roll, Toshiko went on with her angry rant, pouring out everything that she had bottled inside her in all the months since Gwen had come to work for Torchwood Three.

"You're the only one who has a life outside of Torchwood," she said. "You've got a nice, decent man who worships the ground you walk on. But that wasn't enough for you, was it? It wasn't enough for you to flaunt your so-called happy relationship in the face of us, poor nerds, who never get an, unless seduced by some passing alien. No, you had to cheat on your man with Owen, and you just _had_ to try inserting yourself between jack and Ianto. Never mind that whatever they had was the only thing to keep Ianto alive and sane. So, I ask you again: when do you get enough?"

Gwen stared at her, feverishly seeking for the right answer… and failing. Toshiko nodded grimly and delivered her final blow.

"Don't think that just because you got hired after Suzie's death it makes you automatically second-in-command – it does not. Or that because Jack was flirting with you he'd have chosen you over Ianto. He flirted with _everyone_. That was his _nature_. It didn't really mean much, most of the time."

"You don't know that!" Gwen retorted, finally having found her voice.

"Yes, I do," Toshiko replied calmly. "I've worked with him for years. I've seen it often enough. And now if you'd excuse me – _some_ of us have work to do."

She returned to her workplace, trying to make forget anything and focus on what had to be done. But when a few moments later jack came back to life against all hope and kissed Ianto before the eyes of them all, she felt more than a little evil satisfaction, seeing the victory being wiped from Gwen's smug face, giving room to that stupidly shocked expression again.

Of course, her glee turned to ashes right afterward when Jack left them all again, this time on his own volition.

~The End~


End file.
